Letty's recovery was very slow. The spring was close at hand
before the bloom began to reappear--and then it was but fitfully
--in Letty's cheek. Neither her gayety nor her usual excess of
timorousness returned. A certain sad seriousness had taken the
place of both, and she seemed to look out from deeper eyes. I can
not think that Letty had begun to perceive that there actually is
a Nature shaping us to its own ends; but I think she had begun to
feel that Mary lived in the conscious presence of such a power.
To Tom she behaved very sweetly, but more like a tender sister
than a lover, and Mary began to doubt whether her heart was
altogether Tom's. From mention of approaching marriage, she
turned with a nervous, uneasy haste. Had the insight which the
enforced calmness of suffering sometimes brings opened her eyes
to anything in Tom? The doubt filled Mary with anxiety. She
thought and thought, until--delicate matter as it was to meddle
with, and small encouragement as Godfrey Wardour had given her to
expect sympathy--she yet made up her mind to speak to him on the
subject--and the rather that she was troubled at the unworthiness
of his behavior to Letty: gladly would she have him treat her
with the generosity essential to the idea she had formed of him.
She went, therefore, one Sunday evening, to Thornwick, and
requested to see Mr. Wardour.
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